Thank God, all of that you-know-what couldn’t stop Lorehaven magazine’s new spring 2020 issue from hitting cyber-shelves on time.

Our cover story: “The Best of Christian Fantasy,” in which our well-read review team chooses their favorite Christian-made fiction.

Lorehaven subscribers already have their secret word to access all the new issue online. Not a subscriber yet? It’s free by email. You can read each review and article via the website, or download the free PDF (plus all the magazine’s back issues).

Inside Lorehaven‘s spring 2020 issue:

Masthead

Captain’s Log

E. Stephen Burnett

God may still use “foolish” stories to help our imaginations grow.

The Best of Christian Fantasy

Lorehaven review team

Lorehaven’s review team explores the books they like best.

• A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller Jr.
• Flora & Ulysses, Kate DiCamillo
• The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien
• The Firebird series, Kathy Tyers
• Rescue, F. E. Greene
• Oxygen, John B. Olson and Randall Ingermanson
• The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis
• This Present Darkness, Frank E. Peretti
• The Visitation, Frank E. Peretti
• Phantastes, George MacDonald

Sponsored Review

Lorehaven review team

Remnant, Daniel Peyton

In Defense of the Weird

Marian Jacobs

With fantasy’s “strangeness,” we can train to believe in unseen truth.

Fantastical Truth’s new episode

We’ve also released the next episode of Fantastical Truth: “What If the Armies of Hell Tried to Invade Your Hometown?” Lorehaven review chief Austin Gunderson joins us to explore Frank E. Peretti’s classic 1986 spiritual warfare thriller, This Present Darkness.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Austin’s article about Peretti’s prayer-full debut starts like this:

In the early 1980s, “Christian speculative fiction” wasn’t a thing. Sure, Pilgrim’s Progress and Ben-Hur were staples in Christian libraries, and J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis were giants. But fantastical fiction targeted specifically at a Christian audience hadn’t come into its own.

That all changed when struggling former pastor Frank E. Peretti’s This Present Darkness was published in 1986.

Peretti’s supernatural thriller begins in Ashton, a small college town on the northwestern plains. One wouldn’t consider this place as ground zero for a demonic conspiracy to dominate the globe. But the essential conceit of Peretti’s story is that human action affects the spiritual plane, and vice-versa.

Read the complete show notes here.

Of course, you can also listen and subscribe with Apple, Google, or any major podcast streamer—which now includes the Lorehaven channel on YouTube.

Fantastic feedback

How did you like the new issue?

What titles would you add to your list of the best Christian fantasy?

What’s your story with This Present Darkness or other Peretti novels?

Comment below, or send us a direct note using the podcast feedback form.

Next on Fantastical Truth

Unless something big breaks, for episode 10, we’ll put on our hard hats and do a little deconstruction. That is, we’ll bounce off the recent “faith deconstruction” stories among Christians. We will ask, more positively, how excellent Christian-made stories can help us build up our hearts and imaginations–not just our heads!–so that we love Jesus more and can face the challenges of life.

Stay healthy out there, keep praying, and Godspeed!

Stephen